LEE & GRANT:
Profiles in Leadership
from the Battlefields of Virginia
by
Maj. Charles R. Bowery, Jr., U.S. Army

Introduction

This excerpt examines the leadership styles of Union general Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate
general Robert E. Lee in the selection and assignment of subordinates. Neither Grant nor Lee
were able to wage war on the basis of military strategy alone. Both generals were constrained by
regional loyalties, rank, and politics from making desired personnel changes.
The excerpt is a fascinating study in how to manage subordinates you're not at liberty to fire.
Most business leaders face similar issues; however, the costs to the Union and the Confederacy were measured in lost lives, not market share.
The same techniques that Grant and
Lee used on the battlefield are the same that can be applied to the boardroom,
the manufacturing floor, or the engineering section. This is not only a
great lesson in history, it is a great lesson in the management that history
teaches.

LEE & GRANT:
Leadership in BondageBy
Maj. Charles R. Bowery, Jr.

1. Robert E. Lee and the Politics of Promotion

With James Longstreet recovering from his May 6 wound and numerous other generals wounded
or out of action, Lee had to make a major reorganization of his officer corps in order to meet the
current emergency. The masterful way in which Lee made this reorganization, while
simultaneously fighting Grant to a standstill at Spotsylvania, is a model of organizational
leadership and political skill. In making these changes, Lee demonstrated that he was capable of
directive leadership, but was also capable of mixing this style with the participation of his
subordinates at key moments.
Lee's first task was to put someone in Longstreet's place. Based purely on military skill, the
natural choice for the job was Third Corps Division Commander Jubal Early. Early, a Virginia
Lawyer and West Point graduate whom Lee jokingly referred to as "my bad old man" because of
his predilection for streams of profanity, was easily the most combative of Lee's division
commanders -- precisely the type of general Lee could depend on to exercise initiative and
conform to the spirit of his aggressive orders.
Early was a bad choice for the First Corps job, however, and Lee found this out by talking to the
officers of the corps headquarters, most notably Colonel Moxley Sorrel, Longstreet's chief of
staff. Early on the morning of May 7, as Lee waited for the return of the reconnaissance patrols
he had ordered, he summoned Sorrel to headquarters, and the two sat under a shade tree, out of
earshot of everyone else, to discuss the situation. Sorrel agreed with Lee that Early was a good
general, but he did not recommend him to replace Longstreet because he thought that Early
would be "objectionable to both officers and men" of the corps.
The Army of Northern Virginia was a collection of citizen soldiers from the various Confederate
states, not a professional army of career soldiers. Southerners of the nineteenth century, and
indeed most Americans at the time, held intensely local sympathies; loyalties to community and
state were usually more important than conceptions of American patriotism. The men of the First
Corps hailed mainly from South Carolina and the Deep South states -- Georgia, Florida,
Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. To put Virginia-born Early, not the most
politic of officers in any case, in charge of this corps would cause a great deal of bad feeling.
Sorrel made another recommendation: Richard H. Anderson, who hailed from South Carolina.
Anderson was not the best choice from a military point of view. He had built a reputation as a
solid and reliable, but entirely average, leader. Unlike Stonewall Jackson, he would require more
close supervision, at least at the outset. But other factors besides simple military efficiency
played a part in this decision. Anderson's division had served the First Corps before being moved
to the Third after the battle of Chancellorsville. Sorrel felt that Anderson was the logical choice
in this regard: "We know him and shall be satisfied with him." In making this key decision, Lee
retained the final approval, but he listened to the advice of a capable subordinate, and in so doing
employed a strategically placed bit of participating leadership. As it turned out, Lee made the
right choice; Anderson performed very capably until Longstreet returned to the army later in
1864.
Whether or not you can delegate to subordinates depends in part on who those subordinates are
and whether they are capable of taking on the responsibility. What are the constraints, political
and otherwise, that you face in the realm of human resources? Territorial issues may force you to
promote a candidate from one section or division over a candidate from another area, even when
that person is not necessarily the most qualified.
Certain candidates for promotion may have connections in high places, even if they are not as
highly skilled as others. In any case, you probably do not have the luxury of firing everybody you
think isn't performing up to par; you may have to get along as best you can with the staff at your
disposal. These issues are nothing new; Robert E. Lee faced them as he attempted to reorganize
his officer corps "on the fly" after the Wilderness. The "best" decisions you can make regarding
personnel may not be as simple as one resume over another.
With the matter of the First Corps settled to the satisfaction of all, Lee turned to other leadership
needs. Hill had proved in the Wilderness that he was unable to exercise effective command of his
corps. Putting Anderson in Longstreet's place kept Jubal Early available to assume the Third
Corps post, and Lee made that move on May 8. This temporary posting gave Lee the chance to
evaluate Early at a higher level of responsibility, confirming or denying his capacity for a
fulltime position as a corps commander. Early's promotion, in turn, cleared the way for another of
Lee's promising young generals to step up.
John Brown Gordon, a Georgia native and a natural-born soldier with no military training, had
shown at every level of command from company to brigade that he was an outstanding soldier.
He too, moved up, this time to command Early's division. Gordon's promotion created yet
another sticky situation, as another of the brigadiers, Harry Hays of Louisiana, actually outranked
Gordon.
Modern leaders often have similar problems: A lower-level leader may not have the skills
necessary to perform, but that leader may have seniority, political connections, or something else
that makes it difficult to remove her or him from power. In this case, issues of rank were every
bit as sensitive as issues of state, and Lee applied dexterity to this problem as well. He moved
Hays and his brigade to the division of Edward Johnson and consolidated them with the
Louisiana brigade of Leroy Stafford, who had been killed in the Wilderness. This move gave the
Louisianians one of their own to command them and removed the issue of rank between Gordon
and Hays. To complete this reshuffling, Lee ordered the transfer of one of Robert Rodes's five
brigades to Gordon's new division to replace the departed Hays. The move satisfied all the
generals involved and left all of the Second Corps divisions with an equal number of brigades.
This level of political sensitivity set Lee apart from most other Civil War generals. As a rule,
West Point-trained generals held citizen soldiers and officers in low regard. Not Lee; he
understood those whom he led, he appreciated their sacrifices for what they believed in, and
adapted his leadership to suit them. A few days later, while Lee and Hill looked on, one of Hill's
political generals, Ambrose R. Wright of Georgia, mishandled an attack. Hill railed against
Wright, promising to convene a court-martial to punish the Georgian. "These men are not any
Army," Lee explained as if lecturing a student. "They are citizens defending their country. I have
to make the best of what I have and lose much time making dispositions," he went on. Hill would
only humiliate Wright and antagonize the people of Georgia by pressing charges. "Besides," Lee
asked Hill, "whom would you put in his place? You'll have to do what I do: When a man makes a
mistake, I call him to my tent, talk to him, and use the authority of my position to make him do
the right thing the next time." Lee's sensitivity to both the needs of his organization and the needs
of his people is a great example for any manager or human resources director to emulate.

2. Ulysses S. Grant the Strategic Negotiator

If you work in a senior leadership position, you probably employ negotiation almost every day to
get your point across to others. In a given situation, perhaps in the formulation of a company
strategic vision or in the development of a sales strategy, you may agree with other executives
about the general approach but differ on important strategic points. Using your authority in an
autocratic way, a "my way or the highway" approach, might be within your prerogative but would
do more harm than good in the long run. A great example of Grant the Negotiator occurred even
before he assumed command. When the Lincoln administration began considering Grant for the
position of general-in-chief, they asked him his opinion on the best way to solve the problem of
Lee's continual success in the eastern theater. Grant stated his opinion of the best course of action
in a typically straightforward letter to Chief of Staff Henry Halleck, written in January 1864.
Instead of lunging directly at Lee along the same line of operations as in all previous Union
offensives, Grant proposed a more indirect approach. He wanted to concentrate all available
forces to make a newer, bigger army of the Potomac, move that force via the Chesapeake Bay
and southeastern Virginia to North Carolina, and slice into the Confederate interior, "an
abandonment of all previously attempted lines to Richmond." His intermediate target would be
Raleigh, North Carolina, and by capturing this he would deprive Lee of the area from which he
received most of his supplies and much of his manpower. In Grant's thinking, this offensive
"would virtually force an evacuation of Virginia and indirectly of East Tennessee" and "would
throw our armies into new fields, where they could partially live upon the country and would
reduce the stores of the enemy." George McClellan had attempted a less bold version of this
maneuver with his 1862 Peninsula Campaign.
This plan made tremendous sense given the futility of Union efforts in Virginia since 1861, but it
was destined for disapproval on the desk of Abraham Lincoln. Grant perceived one strategic
imperative: A focus on the enemy's armies through maneuver and offensive action. Lincoln
agreed with Grant in this respect, but he also operated under a second strategic imperative. Right
or wrong, Lincoln demanded the continued security of Washington, D.C., and he demanded that
this be achieved by maintaining a large force between that city and Lee's army. Grant's proposal
to strip the capital of its defenses in order to form a large expeditionary force was simply
anathema to the Lincoln administration. It did not matter that by 1864 Washington was the most
heavily fortified city on Earth, and that Lee saw perfectly clearly the impossibility of capturing it.
Faced with this opposition, Grant used dialogue and negotiation to get his essential point across
where his predecessors had failed. Earlier eastern commanders such as McClellan, Pope, and
Hooker were inflexible to a fault; as professional soldiers, they took a dim view of Lincoln, who
in all fairness to them often meddled in military policy. But the strategic conferences they held
with Lincoln usually ended in dissatisfaction for one or both parties.
They went beyond disagreement with Lincoln into open and acrimonious arguments that were
inappropriate for all concerned. Their negotiations usually took the form of distributive, or zero-sum bargaining -- that is, one side was bound to win (by the Union's adopting his strategy) and
one side was bound to lose (by having his approach rejected or his feelings hurt). Distributive
bargaining may be necessary in some situations, such as a discussion of prices with a customer,
but in Grant's case, it was important for him and the Union cause that he and Lincoln come to an
agreement that satisfied all concerned.
Grant did this by employing integrative, or collaborative, bargaining, an approach that uses
shared interests and cooperation to arrive at a satisfactory outcome. Grant and Lincoln agreed on
the end result they desired, and they really did agree on the overall approach -- just not on the
specific question of a line of operation. Grant was able to convince Lincoln of the soundness of
his overall plan, and as a result, he got much of it implemented.
Grant was at his best as a strategic leader because he communicated a solid vision while
exhibiting good followership and negotiating skills, as seen earlier. In contrast to his
predecessors, Grant never criticized his boss in public, even though he must have chafed under
the restrictions placed on him. Even though strategic leaders exercise control at the highest
levels, they cannot forget the vital importance of followership.
Grant's relationship with his three subordinate generals were a case in point. Nathanial P. Banks
in Louisiana and Franz Sigel and Benjamin Butler in Virginia were so-called political generals.
They had gained their positions of authority early in the war, when the difficulty of raising a mass
citizen army meant that Abraham Lincoln often had to rely on men with political clout but little
military ability, because of their influence with large portions of the citizenry of their states. Like
it or not, you probably have to work with senior executives who owe their positions to political
clout, and there is nothing you can do about it. Just as Grant did, however, you can use even
these subordinates to get where you need to go.
Political influence became more, not less, important as the war went on, and it came to a head in
1864 as the presidential election approached. Banks and Butler were prominent Republicans, and
thus were viewed as politically acceptable by the administration and by Congress. Sigel was a
German immigrant who was immensely popular with the Northeast's German-American
population. Grant, and by extension, Lincoln, did not have the option of replacing these men, and
in any case, generals of proven ability in commanding armies were scarce. As a strategic leader,
Grant had to make the best of the generals provided to him.
You may be placed in the same situation with your senior staff. If you cannot remove those who
are in positions of responsibility, you must find a way to maximize your team's performance in
spite of them. Grant did this through the application of a coherent vision of victory and by
"stacking" with other proven generals when and where he could.
Grant knew that Sigel and Butler were liabilities, so he sought to place proven soldiers in
division command positions immediately below them, in the hope that the political generals
would in some cases defer to the professionals -- a long shot, yes, but better than nothing. Sigel's
official position was commander of the Department of West Virginia; Grant's intention for the
campaign was to have two trusted subordinates, Edward O. C. Ord and George Crook use the
department's 10,000 troops as one striking force, aimed at severing Virginia's rail link with
Eastern Tennessee and moving northward into the Shenandoah Valley. It became clear to Ord
that Sigel had no intention of letting him carry out Grant's plan, though, and so Ord resigned on
April 19.
Ord was correct in his supposition. Sigel disregarded Grant's intent and divided his force into
three smaller elements, two operating in southwestern Virginia under Crook and William W.
Averell, and the largest (of course), under his personal command, moving southward up the
valley to link up with them. Sigel's blatant insubordination should not obscure the leadership that
Grant attempted to employ, however.
In the end, the Shenandoah Valley expedition made some small gains only because of the
general-in-chief's personnel decisions. Sigel ensured that the offensive failed to coordinate with
Grant's overall strategy. Crook's was the most successful of the three columns, defeating a small
Confederate force at Cloyd's Mountain, Virginia, on May 9. Averell's force also had limited
success, but it was too small to do any significant damage and was not able to move into a
position to support Crook, and so by mid-May the two were back in West Virginia. Aside from a
small amount of damage to the Virginia and Tennessee railroad, this phase of the offensive
achieved nothing.
This withdrawal allowed the Confederate commander in the Shenandoah Valley, former U.S.
Vice President John C. Breckinridge, now a Confederate major general, to concentrate his forces
against Sigel at New Market, thirty miles north of Staunton on the Valley Turnpike (the present
day U.S. 11/Interstate 81 corridor). On May 15, Breckenridge's 5,300 rebels squared off against
Sigel's 9,000 Unionists and defeated them soundly. The most noteworthy moment in the battle
occurred when 227 teenaged cadets of the Virginia Military Institute charged to plug a gap in the
Confederate line, suffering ten killed and forty-five wounded but capturing a Union Canon and
ensuring victory for Breckenridge's little army. Sigel tamely retreated northward, and by May 19,
Breckenridge and 2,500 infantrymen were on board trains enrooted to reinforce Lee and the
Army of North Virginia.

About the Author

Major Charles R. Bowery, Jr. is a United States Army officer, and a former history instructor from West Point,
who is currently serving as a
U.S. Army officer in Iraq. He brings a proud heritage
and personal experience in military command and combat positions to his study of leadership in
the Civil War. Counting three Confederate Army soldiers among his storied ancestors, he was
born and raised in New Kent County, Virginia, a suburb of Richmond on the outskirts of the
Army of Northern Virginia's first battlefields. His early fascination with the War Between the
States led him to the field of military history. Lee & Grant
is one military historian's attempt to take a fresh look at a great contest of
wills and extract lessons for today's business and political leaders.
Before his combat tour in Iraq,
Bowery completed the Command and General Staff Officer's Course at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas, and served with the First Infantry Division in Ansbach,
Germany. He is scheduled to return to Germany sometime in early 2005. He looks
forward to rejoining his wife, Mary Ann, an Army lawyer with the Judge Advocate
General's Corp, and resuming their weekend travels through Europe with their
Great Dane, Frederick.